The news that Eastman Kodak is preparing to file for bankruptcy, after being the leading photographic company in the world for more than a hundred years, truly marks the end of an era.
The skills required to use the cameras and chemicals required by the photography of the mid-19th century were far beyond those of most people — until a man named George Eastman created a company called Kodak, which made cameras that ordinary people could use.
It was Kodak’s humble and affordable box Brownie that put photography on the map for millions of people, who just wanted to take simple pictures of family, friends, and places they visited.
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As the complicated photographic plates used by 19th-century photographers gave way to film, Kodak became the leading film maker of the 20th century. But sales of film declined for the first time in 2000, and sales of digital cameras surpassed the sales of film cameras just three years later. Just as Kodak’s technology made older modes of photography obsolete more than a hundred years ago, so the new technology of the digital age has left Kodak behind.
Great names of companies in other fields have likewise vanished as new technology brought new rivals to the forefront, or else made the whole product obsolete, as happened with typewriters, slide rules, and other products now remembered only by an older generation. That is what happens in a market economy, and we all benefit from it as consumers.
Unfortunately, that is not what happens in government. The post office is a classic example. Post offices were once even more important than Eastman Kodak, and for a longer time, as the mail provided vital communications linking people and organizations across thousands of miles. But, today, technology has moved even further beyond the post office than it has beyond Eastman Kodak.
The difference is that, although the Postal Service is technically a private business, its income doesn’t cover all its costs — and taxpayers are on the hook for the difference.
Moreover, the government makes it illegal for anyone else to put anything into your mail box, even though you bought the mail box and it is your property. That means you don’t have the option to have some other private company deliver your mail.
In India, when private companies such as Federal Express and United Parcel Service were allowed to deliver mail, the amount of mail delivered by that country’s post offices was cut in half between 2000 and 2005.
What should be the fate of the Postal Service in the United States? In a sense, no one really knows. Nor is there any reason why they should.
The real answer to the question whether the Postal Service is worth what it is costing can be found only when various indirect government subsidies stop and when the government stops forbidding others from carrying the mail — if that ever happens.
Although there are many issues more important than this, there are few clearer: any politician that is unwilling to kill the post office monopoly that Sowell describes is unfit for office. Period.
I just bought some Kodak TMax 400 film for my 4x5 film camera. I find a camera with movements and a fairly large film image to be a superior tool for landscapes, particularly in B&W. The film can be scanned and printed manipulated on computer and printed on commercial or my own inkjet printing system, or be enlarged and printed on traditional materials in my darkroom. The costs actually favor 4x5 film when the materials are taken into account. For color work I'm pretty much all digital.
I used to shoot 8x10, but the old Deardorff got too heavy to carry when I moved to the mountains. My 4x5 setup is actually lighter than my digital gear. I'm not sure if the large format community is growing, but it's certainly very active.
Where film has gone the way of the buggy whip for sure is the commercial printing market. Everyone has gone to Computer to Plate (CTP) systems.
If I want to send a letter to someone, which as a business person I do on a frequent basis, I have to either pay 44 cents to the USPS or around $10-$14 to fedex. I opt for the USPS solution on a daily basis. Even if the letter cost 88 cents or $2 to send, I'd still use the post office. So go ahead and remove the subsidy and I will adjust.
But if the postal service is allowed to compete, it will probably lower the cost of sending packages via Fedex and UPS too, and they might not like it much. Knowing how these things work-- my guess is they're in on the fix too. How much lobbying do they do, and for what?
What is your point? Do you not realize the reason for the price difference? If USPS got out of the way you would still be able to receive and send business mail, but instead UPS and Fed Ex would be competing to provide that service. USPS does not allow Fed Ex or UPS to compete with them for First Class Mail delivery. Because of that they only do the overnight and two-day, hence the much higher price.
I receive about 19 pieces of junk mail for every personal piece of mail. Without that junk mail USPS would be in worse shape than it is now.
'Dispense with the dinosaur', I say. Sell the buildings to retire the debt. Let private companies deliver first class mail. End the wasteful undesired junk mail.
Another name for "wasteful undesired junk mail" is "advertising." Would you also want the government to put an end to all other forms of advertising: print, radio, television, etc.? Businesses wouldn't do bulk mailings unless they were cost effective. Your comment is extremely anti-business and, as such, anti-conservative. And, by the way, the Post Office already has partnerships with Fed Ex: they get parcels to Postal Service facilities for final delivery to residences. Evidently it is more cost efficient to Fed Ex to let the Post Office do the grunt work of the final delivery. Do you really believe that other delivery services want to take over first-class delivery of letters when they are trying to out-source parcel deliveries?!? The Post Office is 1) established by the Constitution; 2) provides a necessary UNIVERSAL service at a very low cost; 3) has done so until very recently funded entirely by their own revenues without the need of taxation; 4) and although hardly innovative, has kept up with technological advances and is far more efficient than given credit for (for every late delivery that you may notice, you are getting hundreds that are right on time). This kind of knee-jerk attitude by conservatives to end the Post Office drives hundreds of thousands of Postal employees into the Democrat Party for no good reason. As someone else noted, there are far, far more important issues for conservatives to rally behind than this. I love Mr. Sowell, but articles like this make me cringe.
"Junk mail, for example, does not have to cover all its costs. You might be happy to get less junk mail if it had to pay a postage rate that covered the full cost of delivering it."
In the US, bulk mail is, depending on quantity, 25-30% cheaper per ounce than first class, and costs even less for standard (formerly called bulk) rate.
In Canada, by contrast, what Canada Post calls admail costs about 25% more per ounce than letter mail.
3rd class mail (junk) is what creates the revenue to subsidize your letter to gramdma. All that advertising mail shows up at the post office sorted, bagged and tagged all the way down to which letter carrier will deliver it.
Clearly the post office needs reform to stay relevant into the future but oddly enough it's one of the few things the government does that is actually enumerated in the constitution.
"Oddly enough" Art. 1 Sec 8 specifies a whole slew of areas that the federal government has the power to involve itself in, and does.
You know, defense, treaties etc.
The point is, Congressional powers are not mandatory.
Obviously, even though the Constitution states that Congress "shall have the power" to establish a Post Office, that does not mean that they MUST exercise that power.
For example, how many "Post roads" does the US government currently control?
Wow. I'm actually going to disagree with Mr Sowell.
First, the rural argument has a lot more force than Mr Sowell gives it - as if it's merely a choice to live rurally or to live in the metropolitan areas. If people don't choose to live in the rural areas, who will grow our food? Do you truly want to provide another disincentive to rural living?
Second, the post office is one of the few things the federal government is actually *supposed* to do. It's right here in Article 1, Section 8: "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;". If you think that's obsolete, fine - get a Constitutional amendment going. But, don't treat it as if it's no big deal to simply dump it.
I'm definitely not a big government conservative, but let's leave this one alone for now, ok? Let's get all the *other* malarkey excised, then we can worry about the USPS.
"So would people who live in remote areas, where the cost of delivering all mail is higher. But if people who decide to live in remote areas don’t pay the costs that their decision imposes on the Postal Service, electric utilities, and others, why should other people be forced to pay those costs?"
A classic example of how preening, condescending, urban elitism can be engaged-in by conservatives as well as by liberals.
Not at all. Where you live is a decision, and every decision has it's costs and benefits. You can decide to live rurally, and have the advantages of cleaner air, prettier vistas, and less congestion, but it comes with the costs of being more difficult and exspensive to service and supply. Similarly city living has it's costs and benefits as well. Each should pay their own way or choose differently.
Speaking as someone who has seen the inside operations of both Kodak and the USPS, it is both simpler and more complex than that. In Kodak's case, for a long time, the technology of photo film and the market for photography followed parallel paths. When digital photography came of age, they could either follow the market (make printers and CCD silicon) or the technology (make batteries, pharma expendables, etc.), or perhaps split into two companies, one to do each. Instead, they vacillated between the two and did poorly at both. The USPS doesn't have the same problem; they are clearly market-centric and it is obvious that they should develop or buy whatever technology they need. The marketing focus on standard-size package delivery is basically a sound strategy given their existing structure of large scale regional sorting hubs. Package delivery is a growing market enabled by web commerce.
Nope, the problem with USPS is legacy costs: union pensions, too many post offices, etc.
